Contests, Ham Radio & TWIT.tv - Ham, Spam, Thank You Ma'am

[display_podcast]   Lots of fun and lots of discussion points this week! We talked about schools, contests, more contests, ham radio, 3D transistors and our first Chip of the Week!

• New-ish podcast about scientific computing. We found out about it when Ayah and Alicia from the Open Hardware Summit were on there.
• Jason Struble (@strube09) linked here from his new page!
• So did Steve Mackaay from his site about electronics and tool making!
• Seeed studio (makers of the DSO Nano and other projects) are lowering their board costs.
• Dave dislikes getting press releases from PR agencies, especially when they don't have links to the press release itself! Regardless, we still managed to spread the word thatElement14 is integrating some board manufacturers into their site and the popular CadSOFT EAGLE tool.
• Dave and Chris are still down on the interface that Element14 and others use as their social media platform. If you don't like it, email some people at Element14 or leave feedback to let them know.
• Facebook more effective than Twitter? We wouldn't know because we don't have a Facebook page (yet). Please leave your thoughts on the matter below.
• Googler in the house! Welcome Ian, and thanks for letting us know you're here!
• Chris is considering getting his ham license to start building radios. Tips appreciated!
• As mentioned on the Low SWR podcast, Leo Laporte is starting a new show with Bob Heil of Heil Sound (microphones and other audio gear).
• Leo announced their theme song was composed by Joe Walsh (of the Eagles)...who is also a ham!
• New shows should be easy for Leo in his brand new, badass space!
• Previously mentioned Touchstone Semi just announced a design contest using their new component, the TS1001.
  • Confusion about how much power can be used. Less than .8V? That's the minimum rail voltage! Please clarify!
  • Confusion about why they are collecting designs. Encourage people to open source the designs! (OSHW is the license of choice!)
• Dave got third place in the My Tektronix Scope contest! Thanks for all the votes!
• Intel announced their 3D transistor structure for the 22nm node. Check out the pictures for more understanding of how they work.
• Chip of the Week: The LT4000, a fancy battery charge controller we noticed in Electronics Weekly magazine that uses the compensation pin on a DC/DC controller to control how the battery should be charged. A complex and intriguing solution for battery problems!
• Should colleges charge more for engineering degrees? The "logic", as explained by University of Nebraska at Lincoln, is that engineering grads make more after graduation.
• An awesome hack (via reddit) using an AVR as an RFID tag, by taking advantage of the input pins protection diodes to rectify incident power. Great article, great site!